Guest Post: When BYOB = Bring Your Own Broom.

Summer is winding down* and with the impending change of seasons comes stories of what our libraries have gotten up to this summer. Today, I'd like to share an awesome program from Krista Briggs, the Teen Services Specialist at Canton Free Library:

Every year we celebrate widespread love for Harry Potter with our annual Harry Potter Week. This is an event that's been going on for about five years now, it's all ages, but tends to be populated by ages 10-18. It started out as a refresher on the film series when new HP movies were released in theaters, and just continued once all the movies were out.

We would screen each movie throughout the week and have themed snacks, including our homemade "Honeyduke's" Chocolate Frogs.

This year we made our way through the eight films over the course of four days. We had lunch, played games, and ate snacks. I learned that people of all ages are capable of eating their weight in Edible Wands and Pumpkin Pasties! Finally, we concluded the week with a Quidditch match in the park!

The whole event worked out better than I could have hoped. About a month before, I learned that St. Lawrence University has a Quidditch team, and was put in contact with their team captain.

The team volunteered to send members and equipment to our event and teach the kids how to play. In all, four team members turned up to teach more than a dozen children and teens how to play a fictional sport which required them to ride brooms! We also got cooperation from the public school in the form of extra equipment. Also, it was BYOB (Bring Your Own Broom), so the lightsabers filled in for those who didn't or couldn't bring a broom. We don't discriminate between fandoms!

Did I mention we had a golden snitch? A friend of mine knitted us a snitch hat, which we stuck on an 11-year-old who was only too thrilled to run around the park like a sugared-up squirrel!

Needless to say, we drew a crowd! Within five minutes of getting started, multiple families who had been getting ice cream across the road came over to spectate as they would any other sport.

We wrapped up the day by sharing our Hogwarts houses, favorite Hogwards class, and favorite muggle class. Then we all got ice cream thanks to a generous donation by Morgan's Ice House!

Thanks as ever to Krista, who continues to blow my mind with her teen programming. See photos and video from the event!

Interested in learning more about Quidditch as played on the ground? Of course you are.

*Regardless of what the thermometer says, summer is, in fact, winding down. Wind down already, summer! Or, at least, rain already! As a native Syracusan, I get unsettled when it hasn't rained in over a week.